Ahhhhh

Since the flooding last week which included our cellar, we have had problems with our cellar which weren't quite clear. So yesterday started on the search starting at the house and working our way to our cesspit, then to various drain manholes before the water goes into the stream alongside the property, probably good 70m from the house. An awful lot can go wrong!

Yesterday having checked and done a lot of pumping close to the house, saw that the cleaned water wasn't going down the long 60m field drainpipe. I knew there was a manhole pipe in the hedge alongside the stream but not where. Lots of poking around with metal sticks found its location. Buried under good 10cm of roots and earth.

Took ages to even start to clear it awy & gave up last night. Today armed with a grinder cut away all I could, still a long difficult job and finally had it clear and could lift off the concrete cover with the tractor frontloader. And then our problem was revealed. Masses of fine tree roots had encircled the inlet from the house and the outlet to the stream. The flood water had caused the roots to finally block everything. You can in one photo see my feet standing in the manhole on the two root balls.

Lots more cutting away and using a special drain cleaner hose for our high pressure cleaner inserted from the stream outlet, we eventually got it all cleaned up & water flowing again. Sort of job one should really do every year. I think the last time was 15 years ago after heavy flooding.